Pat used to host "Wheel" DRUNK

There were probably a lot of people who turned down things like RV's, kitchen appliances, and boats for various reasons. Very few regular people are likely to turn down cash and cars. I don't know the specifics, so I don't know what they'd recieve instead if anything.

After giving them away this long, that's how contestants may feel. Prizes like vacations are what regular people go to Wheel to win. Besides it's kind of hard to go from giving a vacation away in each episode to possibly not giving one away at all for an extended period of time. Not to mention it gives Wheel Watchers Club menbers incentive to watch.

The Gift Tag's purpose now make perfect sense. Of course, they wouldn't need the Gift Tag if they offered more than just trips.

Fixed maligned quote.

While I don't know why shopping was dropped from nighttime, I've never heard anything about Pat not liking it.


The thing you don't seem to be grasping is that I'm not talking about automobiles -- cars could stay, sure, but replace some envelopes with more "practical" prizes like furniture, home-entertainment packages, jewelry, annuities, etc. Heck, at this rate I'd take a boat because it'd actually be something different!

I think Wheel, despite its popularity, has had the same trouble getting sponsors as Price, hence why nearly everything else has been chopped out and any "variety" is in the smallest parts of the show (Gift Tag, closed-captioning plugs, etc.). If they didn't have trouble, then Friedman made the change on purpose...which is a far, far more depressing thought near the level of their dubbing obsession last year.


I've never said anything about removing the Pity Thousand. Ever. Increase the house minimum and first Toss-Up to $1,500 to avoid the False Dignity Thousand, sure, but...


No, trips are trips. The "prizes" I refer to are things like I mentioned above. The fact that trips are always used (and by the way, the WOFL term is "Trip Puzzle") handcuffs the puzzle writers, hence the low-quality puzzles this season -- most notably EXPERIENCE LIFE IN THE CARIBBEAN and WHERE DO I PICK UP MY SKI-LIFT TICKETS?


That's the problem -- the "Prize" Puzzle has become too predictable, and tends to restrict itself to North America. Adding variety would mean that you don't know what you could win until you watch, giving a heightened air of excitement and mystery that's sorely lacking.

Whoa, guys, this is getting way off-topic. If you want to keep discussing this, start a new thread or take to private messages. Please try to remain on topic here. Thanks!

That's pretty odd that Pat's more of a surprise than Daniel's.

Now I think to couple with Pat's drunkenness on his early days of Wheel was probably his inexperience. In an interview, Pat said that during his first week on the show (a Teen Week) that a young girl incorrectly solved Abraham Lincoln as "Abraham Bincoln." Pat tried to tell the girl that he was the one who gave the Gettysburg Address, but not only did he probably make it worse for her, but there were two other things. One, she incorrectly solved it so she lost her turn. Second, this wasn't the Australian version of Wheel so he couldn't give hints (like Drew Carey on Price is Right asking a contestant who bid $7000 on an item," $7000? Do you mean $700?")

And yes, I read about Byrnes's bad experience hosting the pilots (as with his supposed drunkenness), but if there was one thing he did right while hosting the pilots, he correctly added all the values together on the round one wheel, which was $5275. Even if he was told that, however, at least he still remembered that part!